alt Hacker NewsI don't know why they don't just tax electricity?
Do it like taxes, have a low rate for the first X kwhs then increase after. Great aunt Mildred gets to heat her home, your neighbour that has a massive house, EVs, jacuzzi etc etc pays more.
EVs are always going to be an outsized user of electricity, and it's unclear to me why someone's jacuzzi should be heated vat free.
Replies
sandworm101 • yesterday at 6:39 PM
Because the use of a jacuzzi does not burden any public resources. That jacuzzi isn't occupying a space on a road, or adding wear and tear to that road. And you don't need an entire licensing/enforcement infrastructure to regulate who/how/where/when jacuzzis are to be used.
Huge range of efficiency difference between houses. (How did "Insulate Britain" fail so hard?)
I had an actual aunt called Mildred, and she lived in a very old (possibly literally Tudor, not mock, actual) cottage with actual fireplaces and so on.
Her place likely used about 42 MWh/year to heat, though this would be coal and wood not electricity because actual fireplace, compared to my house which is so well insulated that it took a week to notice we'd switched off the heating, in winter, while it was snowing outside.
For 42 MWh/year, you can fully recharge a 100 kWh car battery every day and still have more left over than my house consumes in total.